MAINTENANCE OF THE SELKCTION METHOD. 177 



trees, the Selectiou Method is the only method of treatment which 

 would allow a small q[uanfcity of large timber to be cut out every 

 year. This method of exploitation is, therefore, still applicable to 

 » certain, by no means insignificant, number of small forests, and, 

 notably so, to communal woods, which constitute a most valuable 

 resource for the village or hamlet owning them. Such is the case 

 when the area of the given forest is too small for the formation 

 «f Periodic Blocks of at least 38 or 50 acres each- The n;inimum 

 area of a regular Working Circle wusfc of course vg.ry with the 

 .constituent species, according as they reproduce themselves freely or 

 slowly, and with the situation of the forest, but abov.e all with the 

 close neighbourhood or contiguity or rpmoteness of other forests. 

 In any case, it is scarcely possible to execute, during ai iiy^hola 

 Period of 30 or 40 years, an entire sjeries of Kegeneratjon Fellings 

 over an area 'of oply 25 .acres with all the necessary order, and 

 without the occurrence thereby of dawagp of all kinds amounting 

 ifco devastation pur.e and simple. 



Among the forests under the control of the State Department, 

 the aggregate area of those which fall under one of the three cases 

 just described is very considerable. Such are the forests in certain 

 corners of the Vosges, also on the last series of plateaux of the 

 Jura Range, and in the rocky mountains of Central France. The 

 six Pyrenean departments contain together a considerable propor=- 

 tion of such forests. But it is chiefly in the region of the Alps 

 that the great mass of them is situated. Of the J,J25,00() acresj 

 «f communal woodlands that still exist in that region, probably oner 

 half can be subjected to no other treatment byt the Selection 

 Method. They are blocks or debris of forests of silver fir, of 

 spruce, and of beeich, situated at certain points iu ^he northerly 

 portion .of the region, and of larch, of Scots' pine, and of the 

 mountain pine {Finns montana. Mill.) in the southern portion. 

 The sam« species, excepting the larch A»d the spruce, compose the 

 forests of the elevated portion of the Pyrenees, In Corsica, the 

 Austrian pine is found in addition to these other species. Thus 

 it is in hundreds of thousands of acres that we may express the 

 total area of our forests which must continue to remain subject- 

 ed to the Selection Method ; and more than this, the prevailing 

 species ia those forests are all our niost valuable conifers. 



